Searching
by willshakespeare-immortalbard
Summary: "London was haunted..."  Rated T for mentions of torture and for dark content and general scariness. Please read/review. Bigger summary inside.
1. Prologue

**A/N—I don't own this. **_**The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel**_** belongs to Michael Scott. All I own is my writing style, any OCs, and my pathetic plots.**

**Summary: "The dark streets of London were haunted...haunted by pale, shaven-headed figures that smelled of carrion and death...haunted by unseen hands that yanked people off the streets of central London...haunted by the muffled cries of the victims that never emerged...never came back...were never found. At least not alive."**

**Please read/review. Thanks for your continuing support!**

**willshakespeare-immortalbard**

***Prologue***

The dark streets of London were haunted.

The rumor started in the darkest, filthiest alleys, where it sped along the dirty ground with all the speed of the plague that, so many years ago, had ravaged farm, town, and city. First spoken in hushed whispers by the grubby tramps that formed the majority of central London's alleys, it wormed its way out into the streets, where it clung to the tires of the cars, where it slunk into cracks in the windows, and was then carried into the households of rich and poor. There it was dismissed as superstition, yet somehow that didn't stop the incredulous from crossing themselves and avoiding the alleys even in broad daylight.

Because—superstition or not—the fact went unchanged. Young and old, male and female: all were disappearing. Missing persons were reported, but never found. Alleys were searched, but results never came of it. Mob after mob was arrested, yet still people vanished. It wasn't long before the only answer people could find was the one that had first appeared.

London was haunted. Haunted by pale, shaven-headed figures that smelled of carrion and death, and vanished into the night before anyone came close enough to label them human or specter; haunted by unseen hands that yanked people off the streets of central London, under the very noses of the police; haunted by the muffled cries of the victims that never emerged. The victims that never came back. The victims that were never found.

At least not alive.

* * *

><p>On the night of June 7th, at half-past eleven, the weather was brutal. Rain lashed at windows and poured down gutters, pooling where it could not drain. The wind screamed, and the people, huddled in their houses, guessed that more than one of those screams actually issued from an alley somewhere, but no one dared to look. Trees bent beneath the wind, leaves falling in green waterfalls to the sidewalk even though it was June. They blew down the street like a charging army. Branches moaned, and the muddy puddles of water seemed to gurgle like a hungry monster.<p>

A last light flickered off in the one shop on the block still open. Outside the car repair shop, the cars themselves were little more than shadows, and to the over imaginative, they might have been creatures, lurking, waiting.

The door to the shop slammed, pushing the slight figure down the steps. A key clattered to the ground, landing on the wet sidewalk. A curse, uttered in a sharp English accent, followed the metallic clang. The figure stooped, retrieved the key, and quickly locked the door. Hurrying down the steps, almost falling on the slippery ground, they pulled a cell phone from their pocket and put it to their ear. Shouting above the wind and rain, they spoke into the phone for about a minute. The wind washed their words away. A brief look of dismay crossed the features of the person, and they dialed again. The second time, they closed the phone, putting it back into their pocket.

The lone figure steeled itself against the weather and, casting a last frightened, skittish look down the abandoned street, walked off toward the suburbs.

* * *

><p>"Heard about all those abductions? Frankly, I'm surprised you still have to guts to drive this thing."<p>

The tall, dark driver only nodded in answer to his passenger's idle chatter. Apparently he was visiting, as he hadn't accompanied the conversation with the usual gesture.

"I mean—whoa!"

The wind moaned loudly, shrieking like a banshee, and the passenger gave an exclamation of surprise. No one noticed the harsh ringing of a cell phone, and the eerie glow of a lit screen went unseen in the sudden flash of lightning. By the time the wave of weather had ceased, all was dark and quiet again.

* * *

><p>The quiet figure walked faster as they entered the more disreputable part of London. The glances that, until then, they had occasionally tossed over their shoulder became more frequent, and their air became considerably more nervous. The clock had long since struck a quarter till, and the weather, instead of abating, had grown worse.<p>

11: 59...the second hand ticked closer and closer towards 12.

A kind of animalistic breathing sounded behind the figure. They spun, searching the night. Pale blue eyes widened as they beheld something emerge from the darkness. Cold hands grabbed at them, and with a muffled shriek of fear, pain, and surprise, the figure vanished.

Big Ben struck midnight.


	2. Ranks of the Missing

**A/N—I still don't own. **

***Chapter One***

Palamedes bolted out of the cab and into the shack. He hated the rain nearly as much as Will did, though for different reasons. _He_ didn't like getting wet. Will just didn't want to get clean. Slamming the door to the shack behind him, he sank gratefully onto his leather couch and kicked off his boots. The digital clock on the computer screen flashed 1:15. He groaned.

"Will?" he called out as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. A few texts from Francis, something from Baybars, and one voicemail. That was all. Palamedes clicked on the voicemail, wondering who's call he could have missed. He hadn't heard his phone ring.

"_Palamedes?"_ It was Will's voice, louder than normal—he must have been screaming above the weather. _"I'm just getting out of work. That paperwork took longer than I thought it would. It's about 11:30. I'm going to head home. If you're in the area, I'd appreciate a lift. If not, I'll see you when you get back. Ta!"_

Palamedes glanced at the clock again. 1:20. He _knew_ that it didn't take an hour and a half to walk from Will's work to the junkyard. It took—in bad weather—perhaps half an hour. Will should have been home.

It took him about ten seconds to decide what was more important to him: sleep or Will.

Grabbing his boots, he slipped them on and headed back out into the rain.

_What is that smell?_

* * *

><p>Will gagged, his stomach twisting as he inhaled a deep breath of what smelled like decaying flesh. He swallowed, trying to fight down the nausea.<p>

Small stones bit into his hands as he pushed himself up. "What?—where?—?" And then, suddenly, he knew exactly what the smell was.

He pulled himself up, using the garbage bin next to him as a support. The rusty metal dug into the palms of his hands, and he winced, both at the immediate pain and the somewhat more distant pain of the tetanus shots he was going to need.

The smell got stronger as he left the stale scent of the alley stones behind. It filled his nostrils and made his stomach churn. His lungs seemed reluctant to work, and he had to force himself to breathe. He didn't have to turn around to know that a cucubuth was standing behind him. He could smell it, and he could feel its aura, like cold fingers running up and down his spine. He could hear it breathing, panting like a dog. Unbidden, he whimpered softly. And regretted it.

The cucubuth had apparently had orders to keep him silent, as the moment the whimper passed his lips the creature slammed a paw-like fist against the side of his head.

Will fell forward, slamming into the metal garbage bin. He cried out in pain as he felt a strip of ragged metal scrape his side. The cucubuth responded to the sound of his voice, and struck him again, this time harder.

"Flamel." It was more a bark than a word, but it was unmistakable. "Flamel."

Cold hands grabbed at his neck, pulling him upwards. "Flamel!" the creature reiterated, more forcefully. It shook Will, and Will had to fight back a scream of horror.

"I don't know," he finally managed to choke out, but the creature either didn't believe him, or didn't understand him, and it tossed him to the ground again in frustration, delivering a painful kick to the ribs as thanks for his compliance.

Will bit back a sob. Flamel. This was all about Flamel. Even gone, the man just didn't seem to leave them alone.

* * *

><p>The repair shop was locked. Palamedes had forgotten to take the spare key, and was forced to kick the door in, even though he highly doubted finding Will, or anything that could help him find Will, there. And he was right. Everything was packed up and put away, and the lights were all off.<p>

Cursing, Palamedes dashed back out into the night. His watch said that it was 2:00 in the morning now, but the exhaustion he had felt as he drove back to the junkyard was gone.

_"Heard about those abductions?"_ The passenger's words came back to him. _"Heard about those abductions?" _He felt his knees go weak.

"Will..." he whispered.

He couldn't do this alone. Running towards his cab, he dialed a number and put the phone to his ear.

"Baybars?"

Soon the word was out in the immortal world: William Shakespeare had joined the ranks of the missing.


End file.
